Gizmos & Gadgets: Robot Bricklayer Builds Home in Three Days

November 25, 2018 – Fastbrick Robotics (FBR), a Perth, Australia-based company, recently announced that they had developed a robot capable of laying bricks so quickly it can build a house from the ground up in three days. Called Hadrian X, the robot can be mounted on a truck or other platform so it can be moved to a building site where it senses the wind, vibration, inertia, and other external forces and applies its advanced software algorithms to begin precision building.

They have trademarked what they call Dynamic Stabilization Technology (DST), the software and hardware that allows the robot bricklayer to work with precision in any outdoor environment. In the latest demonstration, Hadrian X constructed a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in under three days. The robot lays bricks quickly with sub-millimeter accuracy. Instead of mortar, the bricks are joined together by an adhesive that is more thermally and acoustically efficient than traditional bricklaying results. On-site human builders inserted prefabricated internal elements to complete the building in under three days. They reported the laser precision of the robot’s bricklaying made fitting these finishing elements easy.

Hadrian X lays up to 1,000 bricks per hour equalling the daily work of two human bricklayers in that short period of time. Each robot costs about $2 million (AU). The company is partnering with the Wienerberger Group, the world’s largest producer of bricks. Wienerberger is developing and testing optimized clay bricks for use with the robot. Pilot projects are planned for Europe in the near future.

Fastbrick has received a $2 million (US) investment from Caterpillar Inc.to help with commercialization. The U.S. construction equipment giant has an additional option to purchase $10 million (US) of the company’s shares which are listed on the Australian Exchange.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to use the Hadrian X and Wienerberger to supply the materials and build 100 homes. This is part of an initiative by the Saudis to build 1.5 million homes at a cost of over $100 billion (US) over the next five years.